Why Inside Outsiders Are The Key To Succession

A central challenge facing most companies today is picking their next CEO. Even if a company's CEO has only recently been installed, and even if he or she seems to be doing an outstanding job, the people with a stake in that corporation-including the incumbent CEO-need to be giving serious thought to the all-important question: who will lead next? Maybe this sounds like hyperbole. This paper author argues that it isn't. Why? One answer has to do with power. Even in the wake of the symbolic wing clipping that followed the fiascoes at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and other companies, CEOs today still wield enormous power.